Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday December 10, 2009 @07:57AM
from the new-phone-on-the-block dept.

MojoKid writes "Samsung is betting there's room for more in the smartphone market and has unveiled its new bada OS. The name 'bada,' means 'ocean' in Korean and was chosen to convey the 'limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform.' Samsung claims the OS is extremely simple for developers, saying that bada was built to be extremely interactive with its users — including flash control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control and face detection. Samsung is hoping developers will take this user interface and create a variety of applications focused around it, and thus provide different types of apps than exist for the iPhone and Android OS. The bada OS has a variety of sensors, including accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity and activity. Samsung will be hosting a series of Developer Days in Seoul, London and San Francisco, among other cities, throughout 2010."

The entire user interface should be written in a custom natural language, or maybe Esperanto. Interlingua or Lojban. Forcing customer lock-in because once they learn to read and speak in a proprietary langauge they won't want to switch to a different device. This fits in nicely with using custom connectors for power and headphones. Custom memory cards are also an option here, although Sony invented that idea first.

To go with their new, incompatible OS, maybe they can introduce yet another new, incompatible power plug and a new, incompatible headphone jack!

Oh, yeah. I had a Blackjack and I had all the things I would need. Car adapter, headphone adapter, extended battery. I get the Blackjack II, it has all new adapters. So I have to buy a new headphone adapter, car adapter, and they don't include an extended battery with it in the box! In fact, they don't even have one!

I'd be surprised if every carrier didn't have at least one Android based option by Q2 2010. Actually, should have two, one with a manual keypad, and one with onscreen only. I prefer manual keypads, but some like a sleeker phone, with onscreen.

Mr. Jha soon decided to axe the entire Symbian product line as well as phones using several other operating systems. He wanted to simplify product development to standardize on one or two core systems. It came down to a Microsoft Windows mobile operating system and Android. When Microsoft said that a crucial release of its mobile operating system would be delayed, Mr. Jha gave Microsoft the stiff arm and b

All I want is Motorola hardware with... someone else's OS. Frankly, so far they all blow.

I know I'll either get flamed or modded +5 insightful, but I would really consider getting an iPhone. There's only one thing that will keep me from doing it: I want to be able to remove the battery from my phone. If I can't swap out my battery if I drop my phone in water or replace it on my own, then I don't want that phone.

You want a player that is not recognised by the PC unless you install some dodgy rivers?

Funny thing is, the mp3 player for 10$ doesn't need any driver and works with Mac, Linux or Windows.

I was never arguing that most of these weren't possible with other software, but the fact that you have to have three or four different programs to do it instead of an integrated solution from your computer to your phone does speak volumes about the iTunes +iPhone/iPod integration, I was really questioning how is it an advantage of being able to copy everything to an sd card as a mass storage device over having a program that knows how to intelligently handle your media and interact with your device.

I can access the MicroSD card on my Samsung Trill by either USB or Bluetooth w/o any drivers to install. I plug in the phone to USB and there it is, yet another Flash device.

The custom(proprietary) USB end is a bit annoying, but the phone is so thin, even a micro USB wouldn't easily fit on the side.

Lucky I didn't get a custom minijack port for headphone. It even supports stereo out with micro phone. So I can listen to my MP3s in regular stereo then when someone calls, hit the talk button on the phone and ch

My 10$ mp3 allows me to share my music with people with no need to install or buy any additional devices. I can use it at home, in my car USB radio (and the player gets recharged), at work (I don't have admin rights to install stuff),...

Of course this might not be an issue for you, but I like to share my stuff and use it wherever I go.

My 10$ mp3 allows me to share my music with people with no need to install or buy any additional devices. I can use it at home, in my car USB radio (and the player gets recharged), at work (I don't have admin rights to install stuff),...

Of course this might not be an issue for you, but I like to share my stuff and use it wherever I go.

Yeah, I do agree on the installing crap not needed. I do look at drivers as necessary though for something I spent money on.

I prefer the aux-in on my car to plugging in the USB cable. I don't have access to my playlists when I do that. Sucks about not having admin rights at work, I'd just grab a USB adapter for a wall outlet and charge it that way so you can listen to music at work.

I usually don't share things since nobody asks, if they do I'd just burn them a CD so I don't have to worry about plugging a wr

And what about the other one thing? You know: Total control trough lock-in.

Buying an iPhone is the first step to you yourself putting 1984 on yourself.Those oppressive governments are so dumb. They could simply offer shiny things and a charismatic head figure, and be done with it.

How about the sheep mods who actually mod me up because of that statement? I made a post a few weeks ago that was OT discussing the metamoderation system and I made a point that "Odds are as long as you look like you are correct, you'll be modded up. Watch, I probably will be too!". Sure enough, I was modded up.

For what it's worth... there are plenty of file transfer apps for the iPhone, like DropCopy [10base-t.com] (and a few [heymacsoftware.com] others [veiosoft.com]). Might not fit your need, but it's pretty painless to add/exchange files without iTunes.

I was the GP poster. None of the apps listed stop me from needing either a laptop or another iphone to transfer files in. They replace the need for iTunes, and in some cases the need to plug it into the USB port.

seriously. i bought a delve because with us cellular at the time my only affordable options were the touchscreen delve or the blackberry curve 8830 or some such. the delve has a gps in it, i didnt travel enough to buy a stand alone, so i thought...nice. i cant use the gps when im roaming, at all, its completely useless. i wasnt told this when i purchased it. i dont need local gps...im from local. when i complained later the sales rep giggled. what a jackass.

Hey, what’s wrong with healthy competition? Do you prefer a Windows-like monoculture? Even a Linux monoculture would not be good.Besides: If it’s a great OS, then I welcome it.If it is bad, it will fail anyway, because nobody will want to code for it.

Look like the explosion of Linux Distros [futurist.se] that we saw slready is happening all over again on the smartphones.Well, if history has taught us anything, we already know how it will end:the majority of them will either collapse or get restricted into some special niche.only a few of the old timer will stay (probably Android among them ?)

On the upside, that's one more Linux-kernel-based system being sold out there. Just showing that it's a perfectly viable

It's not truly an OS. It can run either on a Linux-based kernel or another, and which they choose depends on the hardware configuration for some reason. It's more of a series of layers on top of an OS.

Oh I totally didn't get that when I read the article. That's not so terrible then.

I'm especially touchy on this issue because I'm dealing with a vendor who wrote a kernel/OS from scratch instead of using something off-the-shelf. And it's been 3 source drops in 2 months and each one has an incompatible API and update protocol. So I have to match the PC-side installer/flashing tool with the version I need to install, versions that are only weeks apart in age.

I have met far too many people who have said they have written one or more toy operating systems, but show something that barely boots and that contains absolutely*no* new ideas whatever.

It's a manufacturing diagnostics OS/monitor/SDK/whatever (for a popular consumer device). The developers complained that U-Boot was too hard to write for, so I wrote them a platform in literally a day. I gave them just enough of a system to write deterministic tests on. And it had drivers for two different ARM platforms, just to prove that it could be easily ported.

The most important feature my "toy" offered was having no features at all. It was a social experiment rather than a software technology experime

Totally offtopic but still great: That reminds me of the old Monty Pythons sound mod for Doom 1. (Oh hell yeah!)

When you shot the shotgun, it went "Badaboom badabing!". The pistol went "Ni!... Ni! Ni!"And when you fell from a great height, the Doom guy said "AAAAH, my heart just stopped... Ah there it goes again."

Looking at app world now, it looks like there's at least a few thousand on there. I was able to download a network file manager, VNC client, and SSH client, all of which I use pretty much daily. Plus good old Shazam.

I get it, you have so far installed a dozen flashlight applications, some tetris clones, and a winnie-the-pooh theme. But there's more out there. Just open up the application and take a look.

Out of interest, did you find a free VNC and SSH client?I've only found the paid ones, which after paying for the VNC client three times on three different handsets and never once getting a reply to a mail requesting that they transfer my license to a new PIN, I'm not paying for again.

Which makes 3: Android, Maemo, bada. 4 if you count Moblin. It will be interesting to see how the market share of the iPhone stacks up against the total for the 4 Linux flavors this time next year.

I think some people are misunderstanding diversity. For a consumer device like a mobile phone, having multiple versions in the market is held to stimulate demand. It makes sense for manufacturers to optimise their kernels and support for the devices they want to use, then offer a consistent developer interface. It also makes sense for developers - large manufacturers like Samsung want to have a "community" of developers, not people who produce a product that works with the competition as well. It is then worth investing support effort in those developers, because they are not giving it away to the competition.

As I say, we'll see in a year how this pans out. Meanwhile, 4 multitasking relatively open platforms versus a pretty and slick but less capable one. 2010 looks interesting.

Well of the Linux Smartphone systems they all have some failings when you compair them to the iPhone.Palm. I would say that the UI on the Palm is every bit as good as the the iPhone if not better. The Card interface really is easy to use and intuitive.The SDK sucks. It is extremely limited. I found several things that I just couldn't do with the offical SDK within just minutes.1. Can not detect if it is plugged in and charging.2. Can not control the camera flash.It also still lacks a few features. No Video

I may not be a high priced marketing exec or whatnot but I would take that bet. In fact, I'd happily wager that the smartphone market reached its limit a while ago... But, hey, good luck there Samsung.

Really? I mean seriously? Take what is called a smartphone today. You don't think in 5, 10, 20 years pretty much everyone who's got a cell phone now will have a cell phone then that does everything that these devices do? We won't call them smartphones then, we'll just call them phones. Just like most (yes, not all, I know) people have a cell phone with a camera now, and nobody calls them camera phones.

I didn't say the market couldn't bear more smartphones - I said smartphone OSes. How many computer operating systems are there? How many are notable forces in the industry? A smartphone OS is little different and the reasons that the computer market can really only bear a small handful of serious contenders are the exact same reasons that the smartphone market can only bear a similarly small handful of smartphone OSes. Already we have a large handful of smartphone OSes as serious contenders in the marketpla

(...)Apple technician: Main bubble turn on!Steve Jobs: It's Tux !!Tux: How are you fanboys !!Tux: All your phone are belong to us.Tux: You are on the way to bailout.Steve Jobs: What you say !!Tux: You have no chance to form bubbly make your time.Tux: HA HA HA HA....Steve Jobs: Take off every 'iPhone' !!Steve Jobs: You know what you selling.Steve Jobs: Move 'iPhone'.Steve Jobs: For great justice.

The potential of this didn't escape me though. Motion sensor, accelerometer,face detection, doubtless GPS so while we can use this as a personal theremin,Big Brother or malware can now not only tell where we are, but what we're doing and recognize the face of the one we're doing it to.

O.k.,o.k. , it's pretty out there but I haven't had coffee and yours hasn't taken hold yet.

"The name 'bada,' means 'ocean' in Korean and was chosen to convey the 'limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform.'"

That statement is almost as meaningless as this post. Personally, I prefer actual applications to 'potential applications'. Of course, would you release a new phone OS with a name that conveyed a limited variety of potential applications? To heck with actual applications.

The BADa OS? Is this like when a Western company releases a product in the mysterious East or that there Southern Hemisphere place, and it turns out their made up product name translates to "rat feces" or "your mother is a whore" or something?

I bought an Android-based Samsung Galaxy which is great hardware-wise (standard connectors, 8GB flash built-in and still the best-looking Android phone out there, in my opinion), but looks to be basically abandoned software-wise.

Just this week Samsung pushed another small update for the same Android 1.5 which came with the system at a time when Android 2.1 devices are already available from other vendors. There have been rumours that Samsung has no intentions of upgrading the system software to even 1.6, and they're not communicating anything to the community.

This sucks since more and more apps are coming out requiring at least 1.6, such as the google maps navigation and google goggles.Hell, at least they could allow changes to the baseband so that the community could build their own system. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of having an open-source OS when you can't use the radio because it's locked down [twitter.com].

In fact, unlike other Android phones, you need Samsung's crappy, bloated, windows-only software just to upgrade the system's firmware. The other get automatic over-the-air updates.

My advice to anyone considering an Android phone is to go with HTC (they're still supporting the G1) or Motorola (they have their future riding on Android). Samsung isn't getting my money again.

Well, if they don't like Android, why do they keep releasing new models?

Actually, I don't care how they feel about the platform. Once you release a product you're responsible for supporting your customers, at least for a reasonable time frame (they are still selling this model).

Worse case, open up the platform so that at least the community can take up their work. Actually that would improve Samsung's image a lot more than if they were to release an Android 2.x update.

Exactly. My hopes regarding this phone was exactly because the software wasn't developed by Samsung, and the hardware seemed nice.

Don't get me wrong, I still love this phone, and the Android platform is amazing (though it could benefit from more memory and a faster processor), but it's frustrating watching it become outdated just because Samsung won't either support it or allow the community to do so.

Maybe Android was simply a foray into alien territory for them that they didn't like? Maybe that's what pushed them towards creating Bada. Samsung doesn't seem to abandon its own platforms; they're sticking with roughly the same non-touchscreen and touchscreen ones for quite some time.

I'm all for competition, but when so many competitors start to cross the line of market saturation it really just sets us back to where we started.

I mean, I like the idea of having the iPhones and Androids and Palm Pre's duking it out for domination of the mobile phone market but when you have dozens of other types of phone OS's all trying to get in on the action then suddenly we're back to where we started. Hundreds of phones and no real consistency between them.

This is only barely related to this article, but hey... this is Slashdot.

Reading the word Ocean it struck me odd that it's two syllables. Generally, the older and more basic the concept, the shorter the word. But then I recalled that "sea" was another name for ocean, which is about as basic as sounds can be for something.

Then something struck me about that word: the sounds kind of sound like it describes, wind and waves splashing. Could the word 'sea' actually be an onomatopoeia? The dictionary doesn't real

Indeed - Samsung are the 2nd largest phone company in terms of market share (second only to Nokia), and they have plenty of "smart"phones (especially if you use a definition broad enough to include the Iphone - that would include most phones).

Of course, perhaps to Slashdot and the media they've "entered", because they seem to have some distorted idea that the mobile phone market consists of Apple in the lead, with the only competition being from Blackberry and Android. The reality is nothing of the sort. (E.g., this random page [cellular-news.com] I found gives Nokia at 35%, Samsung 2nd at 31%, basically a whole load of companies who virtually never get Slashdot coverage - and Apple, who get Daily Iphone Slashvertisements, at 4% - and that's one of the higher estimates I've seen for Apple.)

Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).

They're not entering, but they haven't really done great in the smartphone market thus far. The Blackjack reception was lackluster. Here is the closest thing to official smartphone marketshare [idc.com] numbers, and it puts Samsung in 5th with 3.5% of the market, which is pretty low especially compared to their popularity in the general cellphone market.

Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).

Samsung has been using lately mainly Symbian for it's smartphones, They have some Windows Mobile models but the key products have been Symbian lately. I don't recall them making or even announcing Android phones. What this means that they propably want to steer away from Nokia-owned Symbian and Qt (their Symbian models although based on the Nokia S60 platform have had UI customizations before but Qt is the way of the future for Symbian and now it's time to decide if you want to be on that ship or not). So t

'Of course, perhaps to Slashdot and the media they've "entered", because they seem to have some distorted idea that the mobile phone market consists of Apple in the lead, with the only competition being from Blackberry and Android.'

Apple might only sell 3% of the world's phones, but the earn 33% of the mobile phone industry's profits. I don't see why number of units shipped matters when you're making by far the most money, have a device that has single-handedly reformed the industry, and have the most enthu

(E.g., this random page I found gives Nokia at 35%, Samsung 2nd at 31%, basically a whole load of companies who virtually never get Slashdot coverage - and Apple, who get Daily Iphone Slashvertisements, at 4% - and that's one of the higher estimates I've seen for Apple

Market share for all cellphones != Market share for smartphones. Smartphones are WAAAAAY less popular than the cheap crap you get free with a contract.

4% of all cellphones worldwide is a pretty good achievement when you're selling a relativel

There are two different markets that are often reported (or a subsection of a market really). Mobile phones in general and smartphones particularly. Even the article you linked about the Western Europe market makes this distinction if you had read it. It gives Apple 4% overall but a growth from 16% in 2Q09 to 24% in 3Q09in the smartphone market. That's serious growth in the section of the market that's considered to have the most growth potential by most analysts. There's a lot of upside left that smartphon